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While that explanation may not be really related to the thread discussion, which is about the popularity of this fad itself, I just wanted to re-express my criticisms of one part of it as well as sharpen my critical thinking.

I think the fad makes people feel better about themselves by diminishing the brilliance of the "primitive" people who constructed some of the ancient engineering wonders.

HAD to be aliens! History has shown that savages can't put two sticks together unless someone with lighter-colored skin is helping them. And it doesn't get much lighter than alien skin.

__________________To understand recursion, you must first understand recursion.

Woo's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be adequately explained by aliens.

I think a lot of people just fail to realize how intelligent and advanced some previous ancient civilizations were. Maybe due to a problem with our history education and the image they paint of our ancestors as primitive, and with us as some sort of pinnacle of human existence.

It's highly likely that there were pre Egyptian/Roman civilizations with nearly equal technological and scientific abilities, even 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, just they were wiped out by natural disasters, with most archaeological evidence either fragmented or destroyed.

I think a lot of people just fail to realize how intelligent and advanced some previous ancient civilizations were. Maybe due to a problem with our history education and the image they paint of our ancestors as primitive, and with us as some sort of pinnacle of human existence.

It's highly likely that there were pre Egyptian/Roman civilizations with nearly equal technological and scientific abilities, even 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, just they were wiped out by natural disasters, with most archaeological evidence either fragmented or destroyed.

"When asked what kinds of behaviors aliens were responsible for, only 4% believe that aliens were responsible for Stonehenge (53% did not). And only 7% believe that aliens are responsible for "crop-circles" (49% did not). And only 8% believe that aliens were involved in the design/building of the pyramids (62% did not). But as to what the aliens are trying to do, 26% believe that UFO's are trying to make peaceful contact with the Earth with 9% disagreeing."

"When asked what kinds of behaviors aliens were responsible for, only 4% believe that aliens were responsible for Stonehenge (53% did not). And only 7% believe that aliens are responsible for "crop-circles" (49% did not). And only 8% believe that aliens were involved in the design/building of the pyramids (62% did not). But as to what the aliens are trying to do, 26% believe that UFO's are trying to make peaceful contact with the Earth with 9% disagreeing."

My daughter's middle school classmate is absolutely convinced that Ancient Aliens is TRUE. Poor boy, I hope he gets his head back in shape by the time he's out of high school, I was done with the whole Chariots of the Gods thing by 8th grade.

I am reaching the conclusion that a lot of people want to believe that humans are stupid, ignorant, evil and/or clueless, and need either divine help or alien advice. Or, perhaps, we were smart or enlightened once, but now is the new Dark Ages. So I'm not surprised that Louisville isn't full of Alien believers, because those in that general camp are Fundie Christians instead...

The ancient Alien guys have pounced on this Yonaghuni monument I discovered the other day when watching the history channel. I started a thread on it here, which got some great replies, if you ignore my posts.

I also don't know the percentages, but I suspect that they're a whole lot lower today than they were in the seventies, or whenever it was that Chariots of the Gods came out. Also, psychedelic drugs and the like are a lot less popular than they were in the seventies. Now, I'm not saying there's a connection, but...there's a connection.

__________________"Those who learn from history are doomed to watch others repeat it."
-- Anonymous Slashdot poster
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore."
-- James Nicoll

I think that one of the appeals of AA is caused by living in an advanced techological society. We are so used to technology doing everything for us that its hard to imagine how ancient people could have functioned.

"Endospores can survive without nutrients. They are resistant to ultraviolet radiation, desiccation, high temperature, extreme freezing and chemical disinfectants. According to scientist Dr. Steinn Sigurdsson, "There are viable bacterial spores that have been found that are 40 million years old on Earth - and we know they're very hardened to radiation"

Not only would these spores be light enough to float into our atmosphere without burning up, they are resistant to radiation and also survive at absolute zero and in a vacuum.

Strictly speaking these aren't "living organisms", they're more akin to a template of an organism that can become that organism again.

From Microbial World - "Several scientists have been able to recover viable endospores from bees trapped in amber that is 25-40 million years old"

Complex molecules are rather ubiquitous in space. We're not talking a handful of sugar molecules or some barely-detectable amino acids in a small number of weird samples--we're talking significant quantities of these materials pretty much everywhere we look.

Thats not exactly alien. When our solar system was being created life of this sort may have existed already. Drifting down to earth these simple creatures may have already been alive.

This is an old theory as to how life came to be on earth.

A true alien would be a creature that evolved at another stars solar system. What these alien shows are trying to tell us is that we were visited by intelligent beings from outer space.

I have always contended that if aliens form another star system existed they would have left artifacts made of plastic and other materials the ancients humans were unable to make.

There would be exotic mixtures of metals that can't be smelted except in a weightless environment. There would have been incandescent lights and intact flying machines not just small baubles that look like airplanes. For instance instead of rowboats and sailing boats being found in tombs wed be finding cars and intact airplanes in tombs. Guns instead of bows and arrows etc.

In my opinion what we are actually discovering is clever mechanisms made by ancient humans who deserve the credit rather than non existent aliens form outer space.

If aliens existed they would have colonized Mars, The moons of Saturn and Jupiter and maybe even Ceres and even a terraformed Venus.

If they settled on earth they would still be here looking like who knows what instead of half human and half animal creatures. Stone age humans would have been unable to resist alien invasions and its my guess that humanity would have been exterminated by the advanced invaders.

Aliens never visited earth.

__________________If at first you don't succeed try try again. Then if you fail to succeed to Hell with that. Try something else.

According to the Wikipedia article on the subject, the show has lost some viewers, from a high of 1.6 million down to 1.3 million. How many people actually believe the various "theories" put forward in the program are unknown as far as I can tell. But apparently Katy Perry, Megan Fox, and Ellen DeGeneres buy into it.

Ancient Aliens is complete crap designed solely to get bums in the couch to watch commercials between segments of the show.

As for how many people actually believe this crap? Well the number and proportion is probably down since it's height in the early 1970's with Von Daniken being the primary seller of this woo. Still From various chat forums I've read there are people who take the shows crap seriously.

Ancient Aliens is complete crap designed solely to get bums in the couch to watch commercials between segments of the show.

As for how many people actually believe this crap? Well the number and proportion is probably down since it's height in the early 1970's with Von Daniken being the primary seller of this woo. Still From various chat forums I've read there are people who take the shows crap seriously.

I have a brother in law who is an extremely practical man. Problem solving and inventing useful tools, vehicles, games and other very practical devices is something that makes him stand out from many people I know.

Nonetheless - he devours this rubbish. It took me 15 years to persuade him that his belief that man didn't walk on the moon was based on dis/misinformation from such woo programmes.

I'm staggered to understand why he continues to eat up this stuff - but he does.

Yeah, you never hear anybody claiming that the Parthenon was built by aliens.

Not necessarily - if you Google 'Parthenon built by aliens' you get a lot of hits. Not all saying that aliens did it BTW. I've heard it said about Stonehenge as well.
One explanation about it not being said about the Parthenon/Colloseum (on the forum of the History Channel itself, no less) was that there are written records about the built. Of other structures these are absent, so it's prone to speculation.

Years ago, there was a series of shows on Discovery (European version, when they didn't focus on the 'human interest' part yet) where historians and engineers would co-operate to replicate the build of some of these structures.
They nearly always succeeded IIRC.

__________________Yes, I know it's easy to make fun of the organised churches, but has it occured to anyone to wonder why it's so easy?
John Cleese, So, anyway...